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CCNet 45/2002 - 8 April 2002
----------------------------

"The desire of the technical community is to identify a
threatening
asteroid or comet decades prior to impact and then develop and
employ
systems to either destroy the object or alter the object's
trajectory to avoid a collision with Earth. The goal of the
Spaceguard
program is to identify the most destructive asteroids and comets,
those
greater than 1 kilometer in diameter that threaten the Earth.
This is the
best outcome, the best approach and the best plan. But inherent
weaknesses exist in any plan. As a result, we should ensure that
a
second line of defense, the ability to evacuate a threatened
impact area, is
in place."
--James Marusek, 8 April 2002

"[We] revive the idea that the distinctive hottest lavas on
Earth
may in fact be the products of large impacts. Although we have
presented this idea at ESF IMPACT meetings since 1999, it was in
fact
originally suggested by Dave Green as long ago as 1972. It can
explain many
of the unique characteristics of komatiites, including (1) the
required very
high degree of partial melting of mantle peridotite (2) the
removal of the
need to provide a mechanism for storage of such hot melts prior
to
eruption (3) their association with diverse tectonic settings and
(4)
their quench spinifex textures which suggest emplacement as
crystal-free liquids. This provides an alternative explanation to
the
currently popular origin of mantle plumes, whose deep origins
have
attracted growing criticism."
--Adrian Jones, 8 April 2002

"It is important to remember that all of the above covers
only a
small fraction of what the dragon was and is in popular belief,
legend
and mythology. It is pointless to look for, or assume, a single,
simple
explanation for the dragon and its origins."
--Alastair McBeath, 8 April 2002

(1) PLANETARY PROTECTION: A SECOND LINE OF DEFENSE
James Marusek <tunga@custom.net>

The desire of the technical community is to identify a
threatening asteroid
or comet decades prior to impact and then develop and employ
systems to
either destroy the object or alter the object's trajectory to
avoid a
collision with Earth. The goal of the Spaceguard program is to
identify the
most destructive asteroids and comets, those greater than 1
kilometer in
diameter that threaten the Earth. This is the best outcome, the
best
approach and the best plan. But inherent weaknesses exist
in any plan. As a
result, we should ensure that a second line of defense, the
ability to
evacuate a threatened impact area, is in place.

As the size of the asteroids decreases, the quantity of Earth
threatening
asteroids increases. As a result, there are a large number
of asteroids
that may never be picked up and tracked under the Spaceguard
program.
Therefore it is quite possible that an asteroid (< 1km) may
impact Earth
with very little advanced warning.

I thought it might be worthwhile to describe a comet/asteroid
impact
scenario. The best way I can do this is by comparing it to a
hurricane.

Predicting hurricanes is a tricky business. There are many
variables
involved in making predictions. We might initially spot the
hurricane
forming from satellite photographs. We may send specialized
aircraft into a
forming hurricane to extract information that will aid in the
assessment.
Finally as the hurricane approaches the coastline, the government
will issue
general warnings covering a large area. During the next few
hours, the data
resolution becomes sufficiently accurate to make a projection of
where the
hurricane will make land and a specific warning is issued which
defines a
narrow band of coastline as the target. The affected area is
evacuated.

I expect an impact scenario may play out in a similar manner.
Asteroids and
comets are discovered using optical telescopes. Over time,
additional
optical sightings made during the discovery apparition or later
apparitions
allow us to make crude predictions about orbital path and impact
probability. At some point in time as further sightings from
optical
telescopes are added into the data set, the asteroid trajectory
is assessed
to have a substantial possibility of impact. At this point,
another tool is
brought into service. Delay-Doppler radar is used to reduce
post-discovery
uncertainty and refine the asteroid trajectory. Radar provides
several
orders of magnitude finer resolution than obtainable from optical
telescopes
and also provides information on the asteroid density, shape and
internal
structure. Because the level of uncertainty is reduced
dramatically, the
probability-of-impact equations begin to produce a very high
probability of
impact. The threat is recognized and mitigation efforts to
deflect or
destroy the incoming comet/asteroid are undertaken. If the
mitigation effort
fails, the next option is to fall back on a second line of
defense,
evacuation. Delay-Doppler radar is a key and critical element for
evacuation
planning. Only radar can reduce trajectory uncertainty to the
level required
to make point-of-impact predictions. Radar data will allow a
general warning
to be issued describing the potential impact site. As the
asteroid
approaches Earth, the resolution of the radar data improves and
point-of-impact hazard area narrows in size. A detailed warning
is issued
and the area is evacuated.

It is my belief that the major threat presented by an impact of a
small-to-medium asteroid
(< 1km) or a small comet fragment is the blast wave (for a
land impact). If
individuals can be evacuated outside the 1-psi overburst pressure
zone,
there is a high probability that their lives can be saved from
the impact.
In order for this to occur, the point of impact must be
determined with a
fair degree of accuracy and there must be sufficient warning time
to allow
evacuation.

Knowing the exact point-of-impact for an ocean impact is also
critical. This
data would allow analysis of the propagation of the ocean shock
wave on the
surrounding continents in order to project which coastlines would
be
affected by a resulting tsunami. From this process, reliable
coastal
evacuation orders could be given.

I have a major concern: The U.S. has two asteroid/comet radar
telescopes:
Arecibo and Goldstone. These instruments' radar
capabilities and the NEA
radar investigations that use them are supported by NASA, but
this support
has been dramatically reduced in early 2002. The decision to
reduce support
of this capability undermines the nation's ability to obtain the
information
needed to predict and mitigate a collision by an asteroid or
comet. Radar
reconnaissance is as critical to a successful mitigation program
as it is to
trajectory predictions. It is the only reliable ground-based
technique for
determining critical properties: size, shape, density, internal
structure
and whether the object is a binary system. And should mitigation
efforts
fail, this capability is critical to a second line of defense.
The loss of
these sites will severely limit the ability to define the
point-of-impact
with sufficient resolution to issue specific warnings and to
implement an
evacuation plan.

In the last edition of "The Astronomer" magazine (2002
March, Vol. 38, No.
455, pp.295-297) given that it seems almost certain now that
C/2002 C1
(Ikeya-Zhang) = C/1661 C1, Graeme Waddington and I suggest that
comets
C/1532 R1 and C/1661 C1 are themselves fragments of a single,
common
ancestor.

The idea that C/1532 R1 and C/1661 are linked is not new. Halley
himself
suggested it in 1705, although he suspected that the latter was a
return of
the former. The orbital elements, although uncertain, are very
similar.
There are various instances of comets that split in the past and
have
produced objects in different orbits. A good example is
42P/Neujmin 3 and
53P/Van Briesbroek. Another is the 1880s and 1960s Kreutz Group
clusters.

The descending node of Ikeya-Zhang is close to the orbit of
Jupiter and
permits the possibility of strong perturbations through close
encounters
where a small difference in T between two components could lead
to a very
large relative change in the orbits of the two fragments.

Even given a linkage between 2002 and 1631 extrapolating back
several orbits
into the past is highly uncertain thus many scenarios are
possible, but
several suggest that a close encounter with Jupiter in the 5th
Century could
have produced the orbits of C/1532 R1 and C/1661 C1=C/2002 C1.
One possible
scenario is a splitting at perihelion around 450 AD followed by a
Jupiter
encounter some 400 days later that separated the orbits.

There is some evidence that the comet of 1273 may also have been
a previous
return of C/2002 C1 (Ikeya-Zhang). It is possible to reproduce
the movement
of the 1273 comet using the orbit from the 1661-2002 linkage,
although it is
fair to say that this is not without problems. Such a linkage
over three
perihelion passages would allow a much better orbital solution
potentially
allowing an approximation to the non-gravitation terms to be
included and
thus permitting a more reliable extrapolation into the past.

Further details of this work including some possible linkage
scenarios
calculated by Graeme Waddington are to be published in the April
edition of
The Astronomer. At present any linkage is highly uncertain, but
we think
that it can be demonstrated that such an association with a
common
precursor is at least not impossible.

Mark Kidger

Ps: Recent light curve data seems to suggest that there may be
the
perihelion assymmetry in the light curve predicted by John Bortle
(The
Astronomer, 38, 455, pp.298-299). This would have interesting
implications
for the dynamical history of the comet presented above.

A forthcoming paper in Geology Today (APJones, Feb 2002), revives
the idea
that the distinctive hottest lavas on Earth may in fact be the
products of
large impacts. Although we have presented this idea at ESF IMPACT
meetings
since 1999 (eg: Jones et al; Ber. Polarforsch. 343 (1999) 41-42;
Jones et
al, in: F Martinez-Ruiz, M. Ortega-Huertas, I.Palomo (Eds.)
Impact markers
in the stratigraphic record, Universidad de Granada, (2001)
57-58), it was
in fact originally suggested by Dave Green as long ago as 1972
(Green DH,
Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 15, 263-270). It can explain many of the
unique
characteristics of komatiites, including (1) the required very
high degree
of partial melting of mantle peridotite (2) the removal of the
need to
provide a mechanism for storage of such hot melts prior to
eruption (3)
their association with diverse tectonic settings and (4) their
quench
spinifex textures which suggest emplacement as crystal-free
liquids. This
provides an alternative explanation to the currently popular
origin of
mantle plumes, whose deep origins have attracted growing
criticism, as
summarised by Herman Burchard (CCNET: 9 March 2001). It also
sidesteps the
debate on "wet" versus "dry" peridotite as
sources of komatiites.

In the wider context of impact volcanism (see web abstracthttp://www.bghrc.com/vmsg/VMSGAbstracts&Posters.pdf)
we focus on the
fundamental effects of decompression melting beneath a large
impact crater,
where the target is thermally active, such as the Earth. The
"extra energy"
compared with conventional impact physics, is derived from
gravitational
energy and is outside (but additive to) the conventional
calculations of
impact modelling, where energy is derived solely from the kinetic
energy of
the impacting projectile, be it comet or asteroid; therefore the
empirical
correlation between total melt volume and crater size will no
longer apply,
but instead be non-linear above some threshold size, depending
on,
primarily, thermal structure and melting behaviour. We contend
that
decompresion melting is the key to understanding the volumes of
melt
generated during large impacts and that in general, this process
has been
overlooked or wrongly de-emphasised (Melosh, LPI contrib. 1053,
(2000)
141-142; Pierazzo et al Icarus 127 (1997) 408-423). However, B.
Ivanov
concedes (pers comm 2001) that although he considers the process
highly
improbable, it may have operated during the early history of the
Earth when
conditions were hotter and large impacts more frequent.

For terrestrial oceanic impacts the case is straightforward,
lithospheric
thickness is rather uniform and geotherms vary from young hot to
cold and
old. Decompression melting of the mantle is effective because the
temperature interval between ambient geotherm and lithological
melting
closes rapidly with increasing depth and because decompression
favours the
liquid state of the mantle. Surprisingly modest amounts of
decompression can
cause mantle melting. For example, the removal of a 2 km ice
layer from
Iceland modelled as a disc of 180 km radius, is considered to
have increased
the mantle melting to depths of at least 100 km (Jull and
McKenzie,
J.Geophys Res. 101 (1996) 21815-21828; Slater et al, Earth
Planet. Sci.
Lett. 164 (1998) 151-164). Since impact craters modify crustal
loading, it
is inevitable that, where temperatures are sufficiently high in
the
underlying mantle, we can expect a wide variety of comparable
decompression
melting behaviour depending on crater size and morphology. Due to
the
melting relations of mantle peridotite, a pressure reduction of,
say, 15
kbar (1.5 GPa) is equivalent to raising the temperature by up to
~250 C; in
the optimal case, for peridotite previously at solidus
temperature (as for
young oceanic crust at an active ridge) this leads to 30-50%
melting. A
group of us are using hydrocode simulations of impact cratering
at UCL to
quantify details of the decompression melting effect. We suggest
that the
volume of melt produced by a Sudbury-sized impact (~200 km
crater) into hot
oceanic lithosphere may be comparable to the volume of melt
characteristic
of terrestrial large igneous provinces (~106 km3); similar
melting of the
mantle beneath an oceanic impact was also modelled by Roddy et al
(Int. J.
Impact Engineering 5 (1987) 525-554). The mantle melts (basalts,
picrites,
komatiites) will have plume-like geochemical signatures, and
rapid mixing of
melts from sub-horizontal sub-crater reservoirs is possible.
Direct coupling
between impacts and volcanism is therefore a real possibility
that should be
considered with respect to global stratigraphic events in the
geological
record; this could provide both impact and volcanic signatures.
We suggest
that the end-Permian Siberian Traps, should be reconsidered as
the result of
a major impact at ~250 Ma. Auto-obliteration by volcanism of all
craters
larger than ~200 km would explain their anomalous absence on
Earth compared
with other terrestrial planets in the solar system.

To return to komatiites, new information from the type locality
(Barberton)
may provide an opportunity to evaluate this alternative theory,
and
especially to evaluate the significance of associated spherule
beds with the
first unambiguous confirmation of extraterrestrial signatures
from at least
two major impacts at ~3.24 Ga from projectiles >20 km in
diameter
(Shuluklyukov et al: in I. Gilmour, C. Koeberl (Eds.) Impacts and
the early
Earth, Lecture Notes in Earth Sciences, Springer, 91 (2000)
99-105. As a
final note, if komatiites are the product of impact volcanism,
their central
role in identifying an early hot Earth is substantially weakened.
This may
also explain the occurrence of geologically young komatiites (eg:
early
Tertiary at Gorgona Island; and recently discovered Mesozoic
komatiites from
VietNam; Glotov et al; Can. Mineral. 39 (2001) 573-589).

Finally, komatiite hosted Ni-PGE-sulphide ore systems typically
have high Os
concentrations, low Re/Os ratios, and near-chondritic Os isotope
compositions, from which Lambert et al.(EconGeol Bull Soc Econ
Geol 93
(1998) 121-136) conclude that large scale dynamic processes,
including major
lithospheric pathways, are critical to the development of these
massive
magmatic systems. The long-term effects of sustained melt
extraction might
result in rootless mantle hotspots, or "impact plumes"
(see also CCNET
contributions by Hermann Burchard) which will require further
modelling.

On February 17 of this year, as many CCNet members know, 2002 EM7
had its
minimal elongation (closest apparent angular distance to the
center of the
Sun) of approximately 7.2 apparent solar diameters at 18:34 UT
[1] when its
rate of angular change for (blinded) observers on Earth was
approximately 2.4 x 10 (-8) radians/seg. Assuming a conservative
estimate of
the size of 2002EM7 (50 meters) its angular size in this time was
3.0 x 10 (-9) radians
(1/3100000 the standard apparent solar diameter or 1/19400 the
angular size of Mercury in ref [6]).

On March 26 of 1859 a object as described in [2] crossed near the
limb of the Sun with a minimal
elongation of approximately 0.48 apparent solar diameters at
16:38:20 Org`eres Time [3] and a
rate of angular change for observers on Earth of approximately
4.9x10 (-7) radians/sag [4]. The
angular size was amazingly 1.5 x 10 (-5) radians (1/640 the
standard apparent solar diameter or
"perhaps a quarter the size of Mercury as he ( E.M.
Lescarbault) remembered seeing...at its
transit 14 years earlier" [5], [6]).

On January 14 of 1983 a "perfectly round black orb"[7]
was observed crossing the Sun with a
approximate elongation of 0.27 apparent solar diameters at
17:54:24.5 UT [8] and a angular rate
for observers on Earth of near 2.7 x 10 (-3) rad/seg. The
apparent size was near 2.6 x 10 (-4)
radians ( 1/36 the standard apparent solar diameter or 4.4 times
the angular size of Mercury in
ref [6]).

As is know the object of 1859 was interpreted by Le Verrier as
the materialization of his
theoretical longings of a intramercurial planet (later called by
others Vulcan) that he placed
(assuming its orbit roughly circular) at 0.147 AU from de Sun
orbiting the last body with a
period of 19 days 17 hours and an inclination to the ecliptic of
12 degrees 10 minutes [9]. The
solar transits predicted for this orbit and others systematically
failed to be observed, however
other unexpected "solar transits" at essentially random
dates were
registered and widely discussed but lack of the vital details of
the 1859 transit[10].

E. Liais in 1866 was the first to suggest (between other
interpretations) a
NEO hypothesis for the 1859 observation: "Just because
Lescarbault saw a
dark body on the Sun did not prove the existence of an
intramercurial
planet. It was impossible from his observations to pinpoint the
object's
exact location, apart from its lying somewhere on a line between
the Earth
and the Sun. Rather than Vulcan, it was much more likely
Lescarbault had
encountered a small body in the neighborhood of the Earth. Such a
body,
moving obliquely to the visual-ray, would show up on the solar
disk, move
off and disappear. Its rate of motion would appear similar to
that of an
intramercurial planet"[11].

It is important to note that E. Liais coincidentally made
observations of the Sun at March 26,
1859 from San Domingos (Rio de Janeiro) between 15:36 and 16:11
Org`eres
Time. Lescarbault in Org`eres at more than 8000 kms from San
Domingos reported that the small
black spot's entry on the solar disk occurred 14 seconds before
16:00
Org`eres Time. "When Liais stopped observing, the planet
should have been on the
Sun's disk for 12 minutes. And yet of that part of the solar disk
all he noted was: 'Region of very uniform intensity, consisting
of tiny specks'."[12]. It is
tempting easily over/underestimate a parallax effect of a
hypothetical NEO here.

The problem obviously is the extremately close approaches to
Earth that a NEO interpretation of
these transits requires. For example for the 1859 event and for a
typical 100 meters NEO, this
interpretation requires an approach to the center of Earth of
6670 km (1.04 Equatorial Earth
Radii) a narrow 292 km above surface of our planet!. Approaches
at this distance are expected
nearly each 500 years. The following Table gives the approximate
distances
(Earth Radii) and sizes (meters) expected for the apparent sizes
(radians)
observed and intervals (years) between transits assumed in the
solar
crossing cases mentioned above:

If being conservative we suppose that any given moment celestial
positions of NEOs of a
determined size are isotropically distributed as opposed to be
concentrate around the ecliptic
plane, we can obtain a lower estimate of the likelihood of having
some of
the NEOs of this size at that moment in the sun direction (at
unknown
distance of Earth) dividing the estimate total number of these
objects of
this diameter between the number of cells of solar size contained
in the
celestial sphere (approximately 185000). Half of this number will
be on the
hemisphere of the sun and half of this half will be between Sun
and Earth.
In this way the problem of an apparent low likelihood of
observing a NEO
just crossing the narrow angular size of the sun is overcome.

I would like the input of CCNet about this hypothetical link of
solar transits and NEOs (never
alluded before in the network) that very cursorily I gave today
to our learned readership.

John Michael (CCNet 39/2002 - 22 March) might be interested to
see Carl
Lofmark's excellent "A History of the Red Dragon"
(Gwasg Carreg Gwalch,
1995), if he's not already done so, as Lofmark covers the Red
Dragon on the
Welsh flag, among other draconic emblems of that country.
Briefly, the first
reference to a flag with a red dragon set on a green and white
field used as
a symbol of Wales Lofmark found (pp. 68-9) dates to 1485, when
Henry Tudor
(Henry VII to be) used it as one of his three battle-flags at
Bosworth Field
against Richard III. However, a red dragon standard
"sparkling all over with
gold" was earlier used by the Anglo-Norman Henry III against
the Welsh in
1245 and 1257 (Lofmark, p. 54)! Red or gold (or the unhelpfully
"fiery"-coloured) dragon emblems are occasionally
associated in texts with
the Britons or the Welsh back to the legendary battling red and
white
dragons of the circa early 9th century AD "History of the
British" commonly
attributed to Nennius.

The Welsh use of draig/dragon/dragwn to sometimes refer to
lightning or
meteorites/meteors is unfortunately attestable in written sources
only to
the 14th/15th centuries AD, a similar dating to that found for
the first
clear English use of dragon/drake/fire-drake as a meteor
according to the
Oxford English Dictionary. The oral usage must be earlier than
this
naturally, and an association between fiery dragons and meteors
in British
beliefs may well derive from the early Christian traditions
descending from
the biblical "Revelation to John" (12:1-6, the
seven-headed red dragon which
casts down one-third of the stars from the sky with its tail). An
interesting early example of what was very probably a brilliant,
acoustic
fireball over the British Isles comes from the Irish annal
astronomical
collection compiled by Daniel McCarthy and Aidan Breen
("Astronomical
observations in the Irish annals and their motivation",
Peritia: The Journal
of the Medieval Academy of Ireland 11, 1997, pp. 1-43), for 735
AD: "A huge
dragon was seen, with great thunder after it, at the end of the
autumn".
Unaccountably, these authors ignore meteors entirely in their
discussion,
and rather unconvincingly suggest instead this was "an
observation of the
aurora Borealis combined with a thunder storm" (p. 14).

The supposition that the aurora can be equated with fiery dragons
or
serpents in early British sources (remembering the
"drakon" (suggested as
either from "derkesthai" = "to see clearly"
or "darkomai" = "to flash or
gleam") is a serpentiform creature in the Greek and
Greek-derived texts
which influenced late ancient to medieval European thought) seems
to be
entirely made by modern commentators, as no contemporary records
dating to
earlier epochs that I've traced provide support for this,
especially given
the medieval equation between fiery dragons and meteors. The
swirling
spiral, swastika and triskele artforms long associated with
dragons and
serpents (amongst other creatures and more abstract ideas) may
possibly
relate to the pulsing, spiralling structures occasionally seen at
or near
the observer's geomagnetic zenith around the corona of very rare,
exceptionally strong, mid-latitude auroral storms, but there is
no written
evidence to support this if so, as is also the problem with
suggestions the
"S"- or "Z"-shaped auroral band forms might
relate to the typical shapes of
such creatures. Disappointingly for dracophiles, the more
probable early
auroral reports are of sky-glows overnight (though some of these
could be
extended twilights due to stratospheric volcanic aerosols,
mesospheric
nacreous clouds, noctilucent clouds, or perhaps even lunar
haloes), spear,
sword or lance-armed armies or warriors battling in the sky, or
masted ships
in the sky, drawing attention to the single most diagnostic
mid-latitude
auroral form, searchlight-like rays.

The dragon-lightning-meteorite link throws up further problems,
as it is
often unclear in early comments and reports if a given stone or
object
referred to was struck by lightning, or was a genuine meteorite
seen to
fall. Damage caused by a lightning strike can be comparable to
that from a
physical object impacting the target certainly, and lightning can
also
create fused-silica, root-like structures in the soil,
fulgurites, by its
intense heat. Despite the general fragility of many of these
fulgurites,
this creates more doubt over what the event may have been. The
precious gem,
the draconitis or dracontias stone, that might be found in the
head of a
freshly-killed dragon, a motif in Pliny ("Natural
History" XXXVII:57;
completed 77 AD) which recurs in medieval European belief (the
OED gives its
first exemplar from 1579; see under "draconites"),
additionally clouds the
issue. This may be an indication that meteorites, thunder- or
lightning-stones might be expected after the fiery meteoric or
lightning
dragon flying through the air had ceased to glow, i.e. had
"died", though it
is well recorded that many ancient peoples were aware that
special stones
(not necessarily meteorites - see below) could fall from the sky
without
this particular folkloric wrapping, while Pliny seems more to be
referring
to a belief in such stones occurring in the head of an actual
creature,
perhaps a large snake.

Thunderstones or thunderbolts were popular folkloric terms for
the internal
guards of extinct fossilized small squid-like animals, belemnites
(Greek
"belemnon" = "dart"), which have the forms
and sizes of unbarbed arrow or
spear tips (see M G Bassett's "'Formed Stones', Folklore and
Fossils",
National Museum of Wales, 1982, pp. 7 & 9), and these same
names are found
for fossil echinoids (Bassett, pp. 15-6), while fossil crinoid
stems and
some fossil corals were called star-stones, and seem to have been
assumed to
have fallen from the stars/sky (Bassett, pp. 14-5). Bassett draws
heavily on
the late 17th century works of Robert Plot of the Ashmolean
Museum, but Plot
was simply recording the oral beliefs of his day. Pliny's
references to
several kinds of (generally unidentifiable) thunder-, lightning-
and
star-stones (e.g. "Natural History" XXXVII:47-51, 55,
65 and 73), or the
tongue-shaped stone "Glossoptera" (XXXVII:59) said to
fall from the sky when
the Moon waned, indicate a much earlier origin for such ideas.

Things get worse when we consider fungi. Both lightning strikes
and fiery
dragons have been folklorically cited as causes for fairy rings
since at
least medieval times (John Ramsbottom, "Mushrooms and
Toadstools", Collins,
1953, Chapter 11, especially pp. 114-8). In the Austrian Tyrol,
the dragon
whose fiery tail coil created the rings was said to appear at
Pegasids (10
August) and Martinmas (11 November; see Ramsbottom, p. 114),
dates
coincident with the Perseid and Leonid meteor shower maxima in
the second
half of the 18th century. Truffles were anciently thought to
result from
lightning strikes too (Ramsbottom, pp. 259-60). Various types of
jelly-like
fungi, slime-moulds and the alga Nostoc have been identified as
"star-slime", the Welsh "pwdre ser"
("star-rot"), known by numerous other
similar folk-names across medieval to nearly-modern Europe, and
almost
always described as the remnants of a fallen shooting-star (see
Hilary
Belcher and Erica Swale's "Catch a Falling Star",
Folklore 95:ii (1984), pp.
210-20). Other objects described this way include regurgitated
frogspawn and
jellyfish, while flounders were said to have been created from
this
"star-shot" fallen on the sea (Belcher & Swale,
note 60, p. 218). European
fungal fruits are commonest from late summer to early winter, the
period
which records suggest has seen the stronger concentrations of
meteor showers
during the year for the last millennium, if not longer.

The meteor-lightning link was tackled much earlier in the
extra-biblical "1
Enoch" (cf. M A Knibb's translation in "The Apocryphal
Old Testament", ed. H
F D Sparks, Clarendon Press, 1984), which dates to about the late
3rd to
early 2nd centuries BC. It preserves much Jewish astronomical
lore, drawing
on other contemporary ideas, and passed this down directly or
indirectly to
subsequent generations via the Judaeo-Christian tradition.
Chapters 43 and
44 discuss part of the patriarch Enoch's second vision, in which
he
describes seeing how some stars arise and become "other
lightnings"
(different to the lightning associated with thunderstorms which
he had
witnessed in an earlier vision), but then cannot part with their
new forms.

>From the above, it is clear both connections and distinctions
were being
drawn from ancient times between lightning and meteors, either of
which
might be associated with dragons and result in any number of
supposedly
fallen objects or perceived "impact" products, with an
acknowledgement in "1
Enoch" of the potential for confusion between them. This is
not surprising.
The similarities between observations of a very bright meteor or
a still
brighter acoustic fireball, events often seen to precede a small
meteorite
fall, and what may occur during a thunderstorm, are sufficiently
close that
confusion in such reports must be expected. Even modernly,
inexperienced
fireball witnesses will sometimes search nearby for anything that
might have
fallen afterwards, without appreciating the glowing fireball must
have been
a minimum of several tens of kilometres away from them. For
instance, in my
capacity as Meteor Director to the Society for Popular Astronomy,
I received
a report of two motorists stopping to fruitlessly search fields
near
Sheffield for meteorites immediately after spotting a magnitude
-8/-10
fireball, also seen from several other sites in the English
Midlands and
South Yorkshire, around 01:29 UT on February 8-9 this year.

Dragons have a long association with weather of varying kinds,
especially
water supply and storms amongst other things, as commonly found
in many
sources around the world. Chinese dragons are particularly
connected with
water, weather, thunderstorms, various electrical and light
effects
(including ball-lightning, Will O'Wisps, "earthquake"
or earth-stress
lights, and so forth, aside from lightning and meteors),
whirlwinds/tornadoes and waterspouts (tornadoes over water; both
types are
associated with severe thunderstorms), for example. The
descriptions of
fighting dragons breaking a path through trees, or quite commonly
appearing
over water and causing dangerous waves and other damage,
occasionally with
fire in association (as cited for instance by Mike Baillie,
"Exodus to
Arthur", Batsford, 1999, pp. 131 and 137), are excellent
ones detailing how
thunderstorm-cell induced tornadoes create trails of destruction
on land, or
whirl waters up into a frenzy, sometimes coupled with nearby
lightning
strikes. The dragon as tornado/waterspout is well attested in
Chinese
sources, cf. Joseph Needham's "Science and Civilisation in
Ancient China",
vol. 3, p. 479 (Cambridge UP, 1959), and the discussions of the
Chinese
dragon through time in "Art of the Dragon", by Yang
Xin, Li Yuhua and Xu
Naixing (English translation published by Studio Vista, 1989). It
seems most
unlikely these "fighting dragon" comments were attempts
to describe the much
less discriminating area effects of possible medium to large
meteoric/meteoritic events, reinforced where such dragons were
stated as
descending from the clouds and reascending to them.

Comets have sometimes been likened to dragons in appearance
(possibly
because comets and meteors may appear superficially similar),
though whether
this confirms any of the commentaries in recent times about
comets being
perceived as dragons in the ancient past, is regrettably much
less clear. If
they were, it is curious synonyms in ancient and medieval
European texts
tend to be to hairy or bristly objects or natural animals quite
often, where
some other more solid or sharply-edged object is not suggested.
Comets can
certainly demonstrate some draconic attributes, perhaps including
long,
sometimes curving, tails leading to a bright, rounded head, and
maybe a
star- or eye-like pseudonucleus, or spiral-form jets in their
comae (Pliny's
description of the comet he calls Typhon as "twisted like a
coil" springs
readily to mind from his discussion of comets generally,
"Natural History"
II:22-6, the comet apparently named after a legendary (?) African
king,
rather than the volcanic, partly-draconic, Greek mythological
monster). An
early dragon-like comet features in Geoffrey of Monmouth's more
or less
fictional "History of the Kings of Britain" from c.1136
AD, where he has a
great comet appear especially to commemorate the death of
Aurelius
Ambrosius, which also foretells the accession of Uther, and the
birth of
Uther's son Arthur, all once-or-future-kings of the Britons,
according to
Geoffrey's Merlin (pp. 200-1 of Lewis Thorpe's translation,
Penguin, 1966).

Geoffrey of Monmouth's is also the first text to feature Merlin
and Arthur
as closely associated contemporaries, a staple of other, later,
medieval
literary fiction. An earlier, and generally more reliably
historical, text
with both characters in is "The Welsh Annals", appended
to a few manuscripts
of the "History of the British" (cf. John Morris'
translation in "Nennius:
British History and the Welsh Annals", Phillimore, 1980, pp.
44-9, with a
composite Latin text on pp. 85-91). From the dates of its last
entries, it
was perhaps originally penned in the mid-10th century AD. It sets
the death
of Arthur at Camlann in 537 AD (but note that no AD dates occur
in the
original manuscript; these are all inserted by the modern
editors), and the
beginning of the madness of Merlin (other Welsh traditions hold
that this
period of insanity started in Merlin's post-adolescent youth) in
573. The
accuracy of the "Welsh Annals" concerning these
characters, or indeed others
in these earlier entries, is unknown. Merlin is not mentioned at
all in the
"History of the British", while only Arthur's
successful campaigns and two
unrelated place-legends briefly are, for example.

Returning to the Welsh "draig", we should appreciate
its use in connection
with lightning and meteorites is, and apparently always was, a
relatively
lesser one. The more important meanings for draig/dragon/dragwn
are the
reptilian dragon, or a war-leader/hero/chieftain/warrior, or as a
metaphor
for the Old Serpent himself, Satan or the Devil of Christian
belief, and
more modernly the name of the constellation Draco. Oddly, the use
as a
significant warrior, etc., seems to be the primary form in
earlier times,
and is almost always a particularly positive epithet. It seems
plausible, as
Lofmark suggests (pp. 40-3), that this usage of
"dragon" descends from the
Roman cohorts' "windsock"-style dragon standard of the
late 2nd to 3rd
centuries AD on, which the Britons perhaps adopted as a type of
"police" or
authority badge when endeavouring to maintain order after the
final Roman
withdrawal from these islands in the early 5th century AD. The
Saxon and
Norman use of a similar standard may well have originated in the
same way.
Geoffrey of Monmouth provides an interesting conflation by
renaming his
character Uther as Utherpendragon (Thorpe, p. 202) after seeing,
and because
of, the draconic comet, saying further that this name means
"a dragon's
head". However, Uthr Pendragon is known from Welsh
traditions predating
Geoffrey, and his name translates as "uthr" = terrible,
"pen" = head, and
"dragon" = chieftain, suggesting an honorific title
rather than a true name.

Finally, it is important to remember that all of the above covers
only a
small fraction of what the dragon was and is in popular belief,
legend and
mythology. It is pointless to look for, or assume, a single,
simple
explanation for the dragon and its origins.

a meteorite fall occurred in Bavaria late Saturday night and a
piece the
size of a fist was found and brought in by a farmer's wife, who
watched it
come down glowing in her garden, according to reports in
SUEDDEUTSCHE
ZEITUNG and DIE WELT. The Geologische Institut in Munich
identified the rock
which appears to have been a fragment of a bolide according to
experts.

Police received hundreds of telephone calls from scared citizens.
The event
was visible over much of Southern Germany.

One observation was of a bolide originating near Leo in the
South-East
moving West Saturday night, 22:20 CET, by amateur astronomer
Ulrich
Schmidbauer looking for galaxies through his 13 inch reflecting
telescope in
Fürstenried. He saw flames emerging from the nucleus but
no trail and he
heard no noise (as reported by others).

Werner Walter of Central Research Net for Extraordinary Celestial
Phenomena
(CENAP) in Mannheim agrees it was a large bolide that broke up
after
entering at a shallow angle into Earth's atmosphere.

The Society of Sternfreunde in Heppenheim (near Heidelberg) took
photos of
the sky which on occasion was illuminated bright as daylight by
the
spectacular swarm of bolide fragments, with trails of sparks
created by some
of the meteors.

NASA had expected satellite HETE to re-enter hours later than the
event but
is reported to have excluded this as a possible cause.

NASA's Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Project (BPP) soon will
have a way to
make several quick little trips to (29075)1950 DA and apply
"all the above"
mitigations of the impact danger. Or they may retrieve it
and put it in
earth orbit to use as a space vacation resort. According to a
newspaper
article I just read, they appear to expect to do even more
difficult feats
soon. It was obviously an "April fools" joke
erroneously published a week
early, or the author spoofed the L.A. Times just to see if she
could. At any
rate, it's a long, very scientific-sounding article, ostensibly
about NASA's
funding of "breakthrough" physics research. It fooled
the relative
who mailed it to me.

The Sunday, March 24, 2002 L.A. Times, in its Opinion
section reported that
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. is
awaiting delivery
of an anti-gravity machine, for which they paid $600,000 to have
it
custom-built by Ohio-based Superconductive Components, Inc.
(SCI).

In 1992, "Russian physicist Evgeny Podkletnov published the
results of an
experiment in which he claimed to have discovered a
'gravity-shielding'
effect' [in] the respected science journal Physica C" ...
"Marshall Space
Flight Center researcher Ron Koczor ... in 1999 ... persuaded
NASA to
commission SCI to build a facsimile of Podkletnov's original
apparatus."

"NASA's Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Project funded last
year's Cavendish
balance ["inconclusive"] experiment. (H)eaded by
aerospace engineer Marc G.
Millis, the group has license to boldly go where no man has gone
before --
to the outermost limits of current scientific
understanding."

They are "seeking projects that can be feasibly achieved in
two to three
years ... Already the office has funded five projects that
investigate
anomalous physical effects. Most do not deal with gravity
per se; as Millis
notes, "modifying gravity" is just one possible
direction from which to
approach the propulsion problem. The group has also funded
work on reducing
the effect of inertial mass, on quantum tunneling and on the
relationship
between electromagnetism and space-time."

"Well aware of the threat to NASA's reputation, he is
determined to
encourage only the most clean-cut suitors, people with university
affiliations and the like."

" ... beyond the ivory towers of academe an unheralded army
of amateurs are
beavering away in their basements against the unbearable
restraints of Isaac
Newton's laws. Go online and the virtual ether fizzes
... "

Then it mentions James Cox, editor of the Anti-Gravity News, his
list of "no
less than seven anti-gravity devices," and his own
anti-gravity invention
he's seeking a patent for.

"When the BPP's next casting call goes out in the fall,
Millis says the
agency will keep and open mind ... new insights can come from the
most
seemingly unlikely directions."

Phasing out the Minor Planet Center's funding is so dense that I
can believe
almost anything of NASA now. If the article weren't so zany, I
WOULD believe
that NASA would prefer to give the BPP $600,000 than to ensure
proper
funding for the Minor Planet Center. The 29075 report being
published in
"Science" may hopefully ensure Arricibo's continuing to
do these kinds of
radio astronomy studies.

In Whitehall, tidal power is a standing joke - it is said that
the first
task for DETR (British Department of the Environment, Transport
and the
Regions) mandarins returning from their holidays is to clear
their desks of
tidal power monographs submitted by cranks, inventors, and
professors alike.
The specific failure of the Bristol Channel Barrage has become a
general
rule in the collective mind of the British government - so that
if truly
workable tidal power projects do emerge, they will have to fight
their way
past layers of institutional antipathy.

Are we in danger of creating a similar mindset? "Here comes
the NEO lobby
again, collecting tin in hand." The quoted remarks of Peter
McGauran
certainly suggest that the Australian minister was given a
one-sided brief
by his technocrats. Once established, such convictions are
difficult to
shake. Repeated appeals for government funding risk turning
freshly-minted
excuses for withholding millions into self-hypnotising mantras. A
rational
response to the threat posed by extraterrestrial bolides relies
on fine
discrimination between the threats posed by comets,
kilometre-class NEOs,
and Tungaska-class impactors. Yet Lembit Opik (a NEO-conscious
British MP)
used a graphic of the Tungaska footprint superimposed on London
as part of
his argument for British funding for a search for kilometre-class
NEOs! In
the minds of the mandarins, this confirms that approving any -
cheap -
searches for large NEOs will force them to fund hunts for the
much more
elusive Tunguskas; a hunt that might consume an unacceptably
large fraction
of Britain's overstretched ground-based astronomy budget. Hence
the Near
Earth Object Information Centre. McGauran's remarks suggest that
similar
processes are underway in other countries. This is not good news.
Either the
technocrats are stupid (unlikely), ill-informed (after several
years of
lobbying, and the UK NEO report, also unlikely), or they have
correctly
assessed the support that the NEO-tracking community can
mobilise, and
dismissed it. In the latter case, only a meteorite shower over
Eland House
will shake them.

These points have been made many times before, as has the
conclusion drawn
from them; NEO researchers should switch their attention to
space. If
ground-based astronomy funding is a Darwinian log chock-full of
wedges,
space funding is both a bigger log - by a factor of twenty! - and
has fewer
wedges. What lends this argument urgency is that, right now, many
of those
wedges are missing.

The International Space Station's stated mission is to act as a
laboratory
for microgravity science. In 2000, the National Research Council
concluded
that two decades of Space Shuttle protein crystal growth
experiments had
proved "inconclusive. The improvements in crystal quality
that have been
observed are often only incremental, and the difficulty of
producing the
appropriate controls limits invesigators' ability to definitively
assess if
improvements can be reliably credited to the microgravity
environment. To
date, the impact of microgravity crystallisation on structual
biology as a
whole has been extremely limited." Other proposals for
space-based
biotechnology research were similarly dismissed. Hardly a ringing
endorsement for half of a $40bn research program. Subsequently,
the
Station's "control", the Centrifuge Module, was
scrapped. Researchers will
now have no way of seperating the violent effects of launch and
re-entry on
their experiments from those of microgravity. Meanwhile, the
Space Station's
crew has been reduced from seven to three, placing a premium on
experiments
that demand little crew attention, such as externally-mounted NEO
telescopes. A review of the Space Station's rationale will be
placed on the
desk of NASA's new administrator, Sean O'Keefe, in June. The
castrated
Station that is likely to emerge from this review process will be
even more
in need of a scientific raison d'etre.

But doesn't the structure of the Station - it has nadir-mounted
instrument
panels, but no corresponding zenith panels - preclude telescopes?
Apparently
not; a recent change to the formula of NASA's MIDEX (Medium Class
Explorer)
Request for Proposals explicitly solicits astronomy instruments
that can be
"bolted on" to the Station.

These details are tedious. But they adumbrate an exceptional
opportunity. If
a ISS-mounted NEO survey telescope can be built for less than
$100mn, now is
the time to push for it. Bizarre as it seems, it seems that such
a telescope
- which, thanks to the ISS's highly-inclined orbit, would also
fill the
Southern Hemisphere and dayside blind zones bemoaned by Drake
Mitchell -
would have a better chance of being funded than the much smaller
(<$10mn)
Spaceguard projects currently being proposed.

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS), flight-tested on Shuttle
mission
STS-91 and scheduled for mounting on the Station in 2006,
provides an
interesting illustration of the potential advantages of hitching
one's
fortunes to the Station. At $90mn, AMS is considered by most
particle
astrophysicists to be an inappropriate deployment of resources.
It is a
sensitive probe for antiatoms. The presence of any antiatoms in
the universe
would require the revision of large chunks of the Standard Model,
but the
probability of this is assessed as being so low that efforts are
now
expended in trying to explain the abscence of significant
quantities of
antimatter in the observable universe rather than confirming its
absence.
Were AMS stuck on the ground, it would have been unlikely to gain
funding.
Similarly, XEUS, a European free-flying X-ray telescope designed
around
periodic servicing at the ISS, is looking likely to be a
cornerstone of
ESA's 2013-2020 flight schedule. When it is discussed, its value
as an "ISS
application" is usually one of the first points advanced in
its favour.

In summary, advocates of expanded NEO defense usually ask for new
money, but
in practice government funding is a zero-sum game. The
overstretched
ground-based astronomy budgets of Western nations offer little
scope for
even the paltry sums needed for kilometric NEO tracking. Civil
service
attitudes in at least one country - Britain - are hardening
against NEO
tracking. A way out could be wholehearted community support for a
small
ISS-mounted NEO survey telescope. This telescope would provide
the ISS with
a much-needed raison d'etre as it struggles to survive cuts to
its crew
complement and power supply. Successful operation of such a
telescope would
open the way for the free-flying space-based survey telescope(s)
usually
seen as the desired "end state" for NEO tracking.

Dear Dr. Peiser:
For the last 20 years I have progressively become more convinced
that large
boulders or ice-burgs from outer space will once again strike our
planet. As
you know I have written an argument on the subject available at
<cosmiccatastrophe.com> and provided comment and
editorialization through
CCNet, Space.com, SPACEDAILY, MarsBugs, NASA and other objective
publication.

However, although I have been trained in engineering, geology,
and
psychology my paramount education has been in the field of
history, and
because of that I am very pessimistic about a clean outcome for
humanity
this time around. I will just mention a few of many particulars
and past
situations that cause me to believe the Earth must experience
another severe
cosmic catastrophe in this century before mankind will understand
the
magnitude of our situation and indeed that the solution is
therefore already
probably too late for many.

For most people the understanding of history is based on their
individual
experience, which unfortunately goes back in time only a few
years. A small
number of enlightened folk study written human history and
realize a little
more than the vast majority that primarily understand only
contemporary
society, and indeed many fewer study geologic history. A minute
fraction of
humanity has even the vaguest concept of cosmic history or the
severe
implications of an asteroid or comet impact upon our planet.
Consequently,
when the population is warned by the tiny minority of trained
cosmically
enlightened fellows, the majority can neither grasp or
consequentially
imagine what in the world they are being warned about, or even
how to
consider the warning. However, sometimes during a brief instant
of motion
picture entertainment a glimpse of cosmic terror might be
understood by the
multitudes, but it soon fades as the next round of entertaining
cinemas
flash by their increasingly habituated cerebral cortexes.

In terms of human history, since Charlemagne's Holy Roman Empire
dissolved,
Europeans have fought countless terrible and bloody wars for over
a thousand
years, attempting to unite a similar people with a shared
history. Only
recently after Europe's wars became world wars, with nuclear
consequences,
has a partially successful attempt been made to unite the warring
European
community so it will hopefully not obliterate itself in another
man made
cataclysm. The point is, it took the majority of thoughtless
people a long
time, coupled with countless errors, combined with graphically
evident
catastrophic and personal experience, connected to an atomic
holocaust
before a solution to their dilemma could be found. And I am
writing about
some of the most literate and enlightened nations on the planet.

Unfortunately there is sometimes little difference between
European and
other nations, if I can use one example from many in the United
States. All
my life I have noticed that when there is a need for something
like a stop
light traffic signal at a busy intersection, where there have
been many near
fatalities, the signal doesn't go in until something like a bus
load of
children are horribly killed and mutilated. It seems as though
people act
the same the world over, and unfortunately even thought the Earth
was
severely impacted less than one hundred years ago in a remote
Siberian
forest the impact warning fell on deaf ears. Combining the above
human
experiences and responses it seems that history and psychology
indicate
people need to experience a cataclysmic impact in a densely
populated area
before a cosmic threat of extinction is taken seriously.

Of course I haven't advanced anything new. If Plato's Republic
(c.370 BC) is
inspected, an important section the allegory of the cave (book 7)
presents a
similar concept to those just advanced. The cave is the world of
illusion
and ignorance of most people; only the philosopher/scientist can
venture
beyond the shadows of the cave to perceive the ideal models of
justice and
reality. Nonetheless, it is the duty of the philosophers and
scientists to
attempt to save the multitudes, even if their salvation seems
futile,
especially since the philosophers and scientists are among the
multitudes.

However, don't hold your breath counting on enough people to pay
attention
and protect themselves just because enlightened warnings of
cosmic
catastrophe by experienced societies of experts make sense. In my
case I
live high in the Sierra's in hopes that the incoming collision is
not
doomsday, and I can weather the storm successfully.

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*

CCNet 46/2002 - 8 April 2002
----------------------------

"In my view, it's the most important technical challenge in
history.
An object is out there and has our name on it. The name of the
game is to
find it before it finds us."
--Andy Smith, International Planetary Protection Alliance
(IPPA)

"A WELSH MP is so concerned about earth being destroyed by
an
asteroid he has asked Tony Blair to raise the issue with US
President
George Bush. Lembit Opik has pressed Mr Blair to involve other
nations in assessing the risk from outer space at the forthcoming
G8 summit.
"I am hoping that the two world powers in the best position
to lead a
scientific project to identify the risk from asteroids, will work
together," said Mr Opik, whose late grandfather Ernst was an
astronomer in Estonia."
--Tony Trainor, The Western Mail, 6 April 2002

"A group of Japanese astronomers watching the heavens around
the
clock to spot any sign of huge asteroids and comets apparently
found
an undisclosed spy satellite, they announced Thursday. It is 50
meters
wide and orbiting the Earth but it doesn't show up on any of the
lists of satellites registered with the North American Aerospace
Defense
Command. There are more than 8,000 objects up there sent from
Earth but
this one isn't listed, making it a prime suspect as a spy
satellite."
--Cosmiverse, 5 April 2002

ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO -- Earth is on a "hit list"
with hazardous asteroids
and comets being nature's own terrorism from the sky. More than
100,000
dangerous near- Earth objects exist - known in sky watching
circles as NEOs.

Off-the-shelf technology to prevent future impacts from making a
mess of
things already exists, but some assembly is required. More
worrisome is that
little is being done to prepare for the day when a big one smacks
into our
planet, stirring up global consequences.

The threat from celestial wanderers is real. A homeland defense
plan for
planet Earth is now needed. And time is running out. Those views
were shared
among experts on space technology, robotics, comets and
asteroids, and
emergency planning. They gathered here for 2002 Space and
Robotics
Conferences, held March 17-21, and sponsored by the Aerospace
Division of
the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Name of the game

"In my view, it's the most important technical challenge in
history," said
Andy Smith, head of the International Planetary Protection
Alliance (IPPA),
based in Albuquerque. "An object is out there and has our
name on it. The
name of the game is to find it before it finds us," Smith
said. The technology needed to guard Earth and we earthlings from
bothersome
NEOs is in hand. "It would take us probably two years to put
a system
together using off-the-shelf components," Smith said.
Already, such NASA
projects as the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) probe of
Eros in
2000-2001, and the Deep Impact strike mission to a comet in 2005,
provide
engineering insight on doing battle with NEO bullies.

Killer application

Experts at the meeting noted the upcoming Deep Impact mission and
that
craft's slambang of an assignment to comet Tempel 1. Deep Impact
will make a
spectacular football field-sized crater on the speeding comet.
Images from
both the flyby spacecraft and the impactor will be sent back to
distant
Earth as data in near-real time. While these firstever views
beneath a
comet's surface and other instrument readings will provide clues
to the
formation of the solar system, this mission is also a forerunner
to fending
off dangerous objects.

Deep Impact's killer application is one of delivering a powerful
punch. The
kinetic energy to be delivered equals some 4.5 tons of TNT. That
should do
wonders in excavating a crater some seven stories deep on Tempel
1. Mass of
the impactor is 770 pounds (350 kilograms). But the real trick is
to hit an
area on the comet less than 3 miles (5 kilometers) in diameter
from millions
of miles away. To do this, the impactor uses a high-precision
star tracker
and special navigation algorithms developed for the Deep Space-1
mission that eyed
comet Borrelly late last year. While en route, the impactor's
attitude control system will
keep the device on its crash course alignment.

Clearly, Deep Impact can be viewed as a trial run system for
learning how to
take out or divert objects intimidating to Earth. Building a
ready-to-fly
NEO defense system, however, is another matter.

Putting the pieces together

There are several elements needed, IPPA's Smith said, to shape an
Earth
protection plan: The ability to conduct spaceflight activities;
super-explosives and ways to transport enough energy into space
to fend off
a menacing object; and NEO-spotting telescopes rigged with
digital gear,
coupled to speedy computers and specialized software. Statistics
argue for a
call-to-action. All life forms on the planet are at risk, IPPA's
Smith said.
Odds are in our favor that the next hit suffered by Earth won't
be of a
magnitude that endangers humanity. "If we're lucky it will
be one that we
can deal with and, if prepared, we can deflect it," he said.
"It is not a
one-in-a-million-year risk. It's not one-in-a-thousand-year risk.
It is a
one-in-ahundred- year risk. An object that is Tunguska size or
larger hits
us about every 100 years. So we're due for another hit,"
Smith cautioned.

Bigger scopes

Keeping the Earth free of impactors means knowing their
whereabouts in the
first place. To this end, more work is urgently needed. Smaller
asteroids
that measure 165 feet (50 meters) to 655 feet (200 meters) across
are also
troublemakers, Smith said. They are plentiful in number,
but aren't detectable at present. "We have to have larger
telescopes," Smith
said, to complete the critical inventory of NEOs. At the present
discovery
rate, well over a hundred years is required to get the data.
Bigger scopes
should reduce that time to one decade, he said. Even with better
sky-spying
tools, just giving a NEO the once-over isn't enough.

Alan Hale, director of the Southwest Institute for Space Research
in
Alamogordo, New Mexico, said that even well tracked, gas-spitting
comets can
become heart-stopping objects as well. He was co-discoverer of
the Hale-Bopp
comet that paraded by Earth in early 1997. A comet that's on a
non-threatening orbit one day, Hale said, can huff and puff its
way onto a
route that makes Earth end-of-the trail stomping grounds.
"We understand the
effects of planetary perturbations. We've got a good handle on
that," Hale
said. But the non-gravitational forces -- jets of gas belching
from a comet
that act like rocket engines -- is "a little tougher nut to
crack," he
added.

Mutli-mission strategy

Okay, so we've spotted a wicked wanderer headed our way. Now
what? There is
no "magic bullet' solution of a single purpose mission to
counter a
threatening NEO, said Thomas Matula, a professor at the
University of
Houston - Victoria, in Sugar Land, Texas. A multi-mission
strategy is more
likely to succeed in deflecting or destroying a NEO, he said.
"We have the
ability today to build the spacecraft needed for the
multi-mission strategy
at a cost within funding limits for a NASA Discovery mission.
That is a very
modest price considering that thousands, or even millions, of
people might
die in a NEO impact," Matula told SPACE.com.

To date, most researchers assume if a NEO is found to be on a
crash course
with Earth that a spacecraft can quickly be launched to deflect
the object,
Matula said. Dealing with a NEO is much more complicated. Numbers
of craft
would need to be rapidly dispatched, he said. Matula advocates
using a fleet
of vehicles, built around a common core. They can be cheaply
built and mixed
and matched as necessary. Akin to an air defense system,
spacecraft duties
are divvied up too. He argues that three different spacecraft
functions are
needed in a campaign to counter a dangerous NEO.

Our generation

First, a scout spacecraft would perform the necessary data
gathering about
the object, even deploy mini-landers on the object to map
sub-surface
fractures and chemical composition.

Once it has surveyed the NEO, the scout scoots to a safe
distance. It then
supports a command and control spacecraft. That vehicle guides a
transport
spacecraft loaded with mini-landers, each toting a nuclear
device. A set of
those mini-landers are let loose, either plopping onto the
surface of the
NEO or put on a specific heading to intersect the targeted
object.
Detonation of the lander-carried nuclear devices takes place,
busting up the
NEO or vectoring it on a path that misses Earth. Distant from the
explosive
action, the scout spacecraft makes a post-strike survey. If the
NEO or its
remains still prove troublesome, the armada could be repositioned
for repeat
strikes.

"Our generation is the first one in history to have the
technology needed to
protect the Earth from NEO impacts. If a NEO does hit the Earth
and kills a
large number of people, we will have to explain to future
generations why we
didn't use that technology to protect them,"

Matula said.

Emergency preparedness

So what happens when the next NEO smacks into Earth? It is not
too early to
think about emergency preparedness, Smith said. Effects caused by
a NEO
colliding with Earth can vary, depending on size of the incoming
object.
There can be fire, blast effects, tsunamis, and other localized
havoc. If
big enough, a NEO impact might generate an asteroid winter that
could last
for months to years. In this instance, sunlight-blocking residue
heaved high
into the Earth's atmosphere would shut down ecosystems that, in
turn, spark
crop failure and mass starvation. Whether small or large, NEOs
can yield a
nasty knock out punch of one sort or another. Increased public
and
governmental awareness about the potential threat from comets and
asteroids
is a priority.

Consciousness raising work about NEOs is underway in many
nations, IPPA's
Smith said, but much of it done by volunteers and groups
operating on very
limited budgets. With the Earth largely covered by oceans, tidal
waves sent
roaring toward coastlines by an impactor must be considered.
Evacuation
routes for coastal cities should be well thoughtout. "On the
East Coast,
there's not much high ground. There are too many people that
can't move fast
enough. So that's a big problem," said Phil Richter, a
structural engineer
astute in the effects of natural disasters. "What to do
about it is a little
bit staggering," he said.

If the really big one augured in, we need ways to feed people
under
low-light conditions from months to years. Underground shelters
need to be
improved and fully stocked with survival rations, Smith said.

Mass exodus

The horrific events of 9/11 involving New York's Trade Towers
demonstrated
how difficult the job of rescue can become, said Dan Stormont, a
robotics
expert from Utah State University in Logan. "Robots can find
victims within
disaster areas. It's a hostile environment, like exploring a
planet with
potential radiation, extreme temperatures, and an atmosphere that
can't be
breathed," Stormont advised. Stockpiles of tiny robots, more
like
"insectoids" equipped for search and rescue, can aide
in post-NEO impact
work, he said.

David Miller, a robotics specialist and engineer at the
University of
Oklahoma in Norman, said a NEO striking a major U.S. east coast
or west
coast city would be devastating to American infrastructure.
"The United
States would be out of the running for months. If we had a
sizeable event
that hit anywhere causing damage...it's scary to think
about," he said.

The aftermath from a grand slam NEO is formidable, taxing
resources of food,
water, shelter, and the safety of perhaps a million people or
more, said
Laurance Higgs, managing director of FocusZenith Limited of
Nottingham, the
United Kingdom. Higgs questioned whether countries around the
world could
cope with mass exodus of shocked and stunned people from one
nation to
another. The economic ramifications are so severe, he urged that
an
international body should start looking at ways to prevent such
damage from
ever taking place, he said. There is the financial argument that
prevention
is better than cure," Higgs concluded.

Impact Events' Kinetic Energy May Be Key to Understanding the
Severity of
Mass Extinctions

By Kara LeBeau, GSA Staff Writer

The kinetic energy created by asteroid and comet impacts with the
Earth may
be key to linking some impacts with mass extinction events.
Michael Lucas, a
geology student at Florida Gulf Coast University, believes that
the severity
of four extinction events during the Mesozoic and Cenozoic can be
correlated
with the total kinetic energy released by impacts that occur
during the
geologic age of the mass extinction.

Lucas will present his findings April 4 at the Geological Society
of
America's North-Central Section and Southeastern Section Joint
Meeting in
Lexington, Kentucky.

Lucas analyzed the kinetic energy released by 31 of the largest
impact
structures from the last 248 million years and correlated them
with the
Norian, Tithonian, Late Eocene, and K-T extinction events. The
impact energy
released during the geologic ages of each extinction event is at
least 10
million megatons of TNT equivalent yield per geologic age. Lucas
believes
that this could represent a minimum impact energy required to
cause a
global-scale mass extinction. His research results also reveal
that
synchronous multiple impact events could also have caused
extinctions.

"Approximately ten percent of the impact structures on Earth
are doublets or
twin structures, suggesting a nearly simultaneous impact of
binary asteroids
or fragmented comets," he said. An example of a twin impact
structure would
be the Kara / Ust-Kara twin impact structure in Russia which is
about 73
million years old.

The links below may be of interest. Both seem to ignore Luann
Becker's
recent work on fullerenes as impact signatures. With
Chicxulub-size impacts
we have the frequency (~100 million years) and devastating global
environmental effects (including disturbance of methane hydrate
deposits that the PNAS paper refers to) to account for mass
extinctions.
That is not to say that all mass extinctions are necessarily
associated with
impacts but it seems to me that they should be considered as
prime suspects.

The biological extinction that occurred at the Permian-Triassic
boundary
represents the most extensive loss of species of any known event
of the past
550 million years. There have been a wide variety of explanations
offered
for this extinction. In the present paper, a number of the more
popular
recent hypotheses are evaluated in terms of predictions that they
make, or
that they imply, concerning the global carbon cycle. For this
purpose, a
mass balance model is used that calculates atmospheric CO2 and
oceanic 13C
as a function of time. Hypotheses considered
include: (i) the release of massive amounts of CO2 from the ocean
to the
atmosphere resulting in mass poisoning; (ii) the release of large
amounts of
CO2 from volcanic degassing; (iii) the release of methane stored
in methane
hydrates; (iv) the decomposition and oxidation of dead
organisms to CO2 after sudden mass mortality; and (v) the
long-term
reorganization of the global carbon cycle. The modeling indicates
that
measured short-term changes in 13C at the boundary are best
explained by
methane release with mass mortality and volcanic degassing
contributing
in secondary roles. None of the processes result in excessively
high levels
of atmospheric CO2 if they occurred on time scales of more than
about 1,000
years. The idea of poisoning by high levels of atmospheric CO2
depends on
the absence of subthermocline calcium carbonate deposition during
the latest
Permian. The most far-reaching effect was found to be
reorganization of the
carbon cycle with major sedimentary burial of organic matter
shifting from
the land to the sea, resulting in less burial overall, decreased
atmospheric
O2, and higher atmospheric CO2 for the entire Triassic Period.

A WELSH MP is so concerned about earth being destroyed by an
asteroid he has
asked Tony Blair to raise the issue with US President George
Bush.

Lembit Opik has pressed Mr Blair to involve other nations in
assessing the
risk from outer space at the forthcoming G8 summit.

The latest warning comes after scientists identified one asteroid
with a
one-in-300 chance of colliding with the earth and ending
civilisation.

The kilometre-wide meteorite is not expected to reach earth until
March 16,
2880.

As a third-generation astronomer, Mr Opik, Liberal Democrat MP
for
Montgomeryshire, has made the issue of asteroids his own at
Westminster and
believes the international community has a joint responsibility
to avert
disaster in years to come.

He said the existence of one asteroid of such magnitude should
serve as a
wake-up call to world leaders, as only one-in-five "near
earth" objects are
detected.

In response to earlier warnings from Mr Opik, the Prime Minister
set up a
public information centre on the issue after a commission
concluded there
was a serious threat.

"I am hoping that the two world powers in the best position
to lead a
scientific project to identify the risk from asteroids, will work
together,"
said Mr Opik, whose late grandfather Ernst was an astronomer in
Estonia.

His father Uno later taught physics at the University of Wales in
Aberystwyth, an interest the MP has inherited.

Mr Opik said an asteroid 500 metres across would do more damage
to the earth
than all the wars in history. "You are over 750 times more
likely to die in
an asteroid impact than to win the National Lottery this
weekend," he
warned, predicting of the existence of yet-undetected junk.

He appealed to the people of Wales to write to their MPs calling
for the
matter to be raised at the G8 summit.

Mr Opik said he had received a non-committal response from Mr
Bush's office
but that Mr Blair appeared more positive.

Science Minister Lord Salisbury has already concluded that there
is a
serious threat.

Mr Opik said a tracking system to improve earth's defences would
cost £80m
over 10 years - or £1m a year from each member of the G8.

The latest "ball", or asteroid, to be identified as a
threat is named 1950
DA, and according to radar measurements is roughly spherical in
shape and
1.1km across.

An object this size is defined as "category three" [??]
- big enough to have
a global effect.

Huge amounts of dust thrown up by an impact with earth would blot
out the
sun, bringing plunging temperatures and massive crop failures.

If the collision was at sea, enormous waves known as tsunamis
could swamp
coastal towns and cities. The human race would probably survive,
but the
impact might bring the end of civilisation.

A group of Japanese astronomers watching the heavens around the
clock to
spot any sign of huge asteroids and comets apparently found an
undisclosed
spy satellite, they announced Thursday.

It is 50 meters wide and orbiting the Earth but it doesn't show
up on any of
the lists of satellites registered with the North American
Aerospace Defense
Command. There are more than 8,000 objects up there sent from
Earth but this
one isn't listed, making it a prime suspect as a spy satellite.

The large satellite was observed by a group of Japanese
astronomers who
search the sky constantly for huge asteroids and comets that
could threaten
the planet. The unidentified object was spotted at the Japan
Spaceguard
Association's observation center in Bisei, Okayama Prefecture, in
December
last year. After examining the NORAD list, the group said it was
most likely
a U.S. or Chinese satellite.

Aerospace engineering specialist Nobuo Nakatomi said the object
was likely
to be a spy satellite. "It is a common practice around the
world to secretly
launch satellites for technical or military reasons, and they
won't make
entry on the NORAD list," Nakatomi said. "Judging from
the information
available, it looks like the object is a U.S. or Chinese spy
satellite."

Shuzo Isobe, director of the spaceguard association, was
delighted with the
ability of its 1-meter-diameter optical telescope at the Bisei
Spaceguard
Center. "We will keep watching space to spot asteroids or
man-made objects
that can be a threat to Earth," said Isobe, who is also an
assistant
professor at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan.

Though the astronomers found it using a one-meter telescope, the
unidentified satellite can be observed with binoculars in the
southeastern
sky.

"The spectrum suggests that the surface is hot and dry. It
is surprising
that we saw no traces of water ice," said Dr. Laurence
Soderblom of the U.S.
Geological Survey's Flagstaff, Ariz., station, lead author of a
report on
the Borrelly flyby results appearing in the online edition of the
journal
Science.

"We know the ice is there," he said. "It's just
well-hidden. Either the
surface has been dried out by solar heating and maturation or
perhaps the
very dark soot-like material that covers Borrelly's surface masks
any trace
of surface ice."

The Deep Space 1 science team released pictures and other initial
findings
days after the spacecraft flew within 2,171 kilometers (1,349
miles) of the
comet's solid nucleus on September 22, 2001. This
week's report provides
additional details about the nucleus and the surrounding coma of
gases and
dust coming off of the comet as measured by one of Deep Space 1's
scientific
instruments.

"Comet Borrelly is in the inner solar system right now, and
it's hot,
between 26 and 71 degrees Celsius (80 and 161 degrees
Fahrenheit), so any
water ice on the surface would change quickly to a gas, "
said Dr. Bonnie
Buratti, JPL planetary scientist and co-author of the paper.
"As the
components evaporate, they leave behind a crust, like the crust
left behind
by dirty snow."

Borrelly is unusually dark for an object in the inner solar
system. The
comet's surface is about as dark as a blot of photocopy toner,
possibly the
darkest surface in the solar system. It is more like objects in
the outer
solar system such as the dark side of Saturn's moon Iapetus and
the rings of
Uranus.

"It seems to be covered in this dark material, which has
been loosely
connected with biological material." Buratti said.
"This suggests that
comets might be a transport mechanism for bringing the building
blocks of
life to Earth." Comets may have played an important role in
supplying
organic materials that are required for life to originate.

Soderblom points out that Borrelly's old, mottled terrain with
dark and very
dark spots -- different shades of black -- are apparently
inactive.
Ground-based observations estimated that 90 percent of Borrelly's
surface
might be inactive, and the observations taken by Deep Space 1
show that this
is indeed true.

"It's remarkable how much information Deep Space 1 was able
to gather at the
comet, particularly given that this was a bonus assignment for
the probe,"
said Dr. Marc Rayman, project manager of the mission. Deep
Space 1
completed its original goal to test 12 new space technologies and
then
earned extra credit by achieving additional goals, such as the
risky
Borrelly flyby. "It's quite exciting now as scientists
working with this
rich scientific harvest turn data into knowledge."

Deep Space 1 was launched in October 1998 as part of NASA's New
Millennium
Program, which is managed by JPL for NASA's Office of Space
Science,
Washington, D.C. The California Institute of Technology,
Pasadena, manages
JPL for NASA.

A massive lump of space junk is headed for Earth, but the rogue
asteroid
isn't due for another 878 years, and even then, it may be only a
close call.

``I wouldn't lose any sleep over it,'' said Brian Marsden of the
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. ``Even if the
chances are one
in 300 of it hitting, that's 299 it will pass.''

He was referring to the kilometer-wide asteroid known as 1950 DA,
recently
rediscovered after an absence of half a century, and now
calculated to be on
a possible collision course with Earth.

He was a young man in the late 1960s when he proposed a project
to look for
1950 DA and other missing asteroids that were thought to threaten
Earth. He
ultimately had to scratch 1950 DA off his list.

``The orbit we had wasn't good enough that we could find it by a
deliberate
search,'' Marsden said.

The asteroid was spotted again in 2000, and Jon Giorgini of
NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory calculated 1950 DA's orbit. He isn't losing
any sleep,
either.

``One in 300 is pretty long odds,'' Giorgini said. ``I'm not
personally
going to worry about it. It is so far in the future that lots of
things
could change.''

Tom Morgan, chief scientist of NASA's small planet program, said
there are
approximately 1,000 asteroids bigger than six-tenths of a mile
that can pass
near the Earth in their orbit of the sun. About 580 have been
found and
their orbits plotted. Of these, only 1950 DA represents a
possible threat,
and that is centuries in the future.

``It is my great hope that we don't find any that are greater
threats,''
Morgan said.

If 1950 DA did hit the Earth, said Giorgini, it would have
planet-wide
effects, setting off fires, changing the weather and perhaps
creating
immense tidal waves. But it would not be a planet killer like the
asteroid
thought to have snuffed out the dinosaurs some 65 million years
ago. That
one was about 16 times larger than 1950 DA, he said.

WATCH THE SKIES?--"At a recent interdisciplinary meeting on
the campus of
Pangaea University, researchers discussed with some alarm the
mounting
evidence that each of the known mass extinction events may have
been caused
by a titanic collision of a comet or asteroid with the

earth. According to recent speculations, such impacts could
envelop our
planet in a dense cloud of dust and ash, blocking out the sun,
with
disastrous consequences for most life-forms.

"Massive impact scenarios should be of more than academic
interest, many of
the gathered scientists said, because a similarly calamitous
collision could
occur yet again. 'It's difficult to predict how bad it could be,'
remarked
geologist Edward Deinonychus of Gondwana Polytechnic. 'It would
surely cause
a huge loss of saurian life, maybe even amounting to 10 percent
of the
population. What's more, even aside from its climatic effects,
the impact
could ignite a gigantic firestorm. It might destroy every last
trace of our
magnificent papier-mâché cities.'

"Some of the participants at the meeting argued that a
future mass
extinction could be averted. 'Our space science is now
sufficiently advanced
for us to identify an incoming asteroid decades before its
arrival and to
change its course,' said Margaret Dimetrodon of Mount Ararat
Observatory. 'I
know it sounds like science fiction. But if we can put a sauropod
on the
moon, then we can do this.'

"But support within the government for investing in an
asteroid-blasting
scheme remains weak. Echoing sentiments heard throughout
Congress, junior
senator Strom Thurmond declared, 'Even if it is a good idea, a
big collision
like this might not occur for tens of millions of years. That's
more than
enough time for us to get it done. Right now we'd be better off
putting our
science funding to more worthwhile uses, like fusion
research.'"

It's long been known that people aren't very good at aligning
their fears
and emotions, and resulting behavior, with statistics.

For example, the chance of dying in a car is much greater than in
an
airplane, but many more fear to fly than to ride. Even people who
are
numerate are prone to this quirk of human nature (e.g., the great
science
fiction author and chemistry PhD Isaac Asimov had a severe fear
of flying,
and always traveled by train). On the other hand, people vastly
overestimate
their chances of winning the lottery, at least from a rational
expected-value perspective.

I've occasionally talked about the dangers of asteroids in my
weblog, and in
fact featured it in my Fox News column last week. I've seen quite
a bit of
skepticism on the issue, some of which may be justified, but it
often
appears to me to be driven as much by the non-rational parts of
us as the
rational, even when coming from scientists.

When coming from politicians, of course, it's even worse. A few
days ago, an
Australian cabinet minister ridiculed people who were concerned
about
asteroids, and refused to allot the paltry sum of a million
dollars in order
to look for them in the Southern Hemisphere, one of our current
major blind
spots. There are many sky surveys being done above the equator,
but very few
below.

It actually reminds me of the controversy of a couple of decades
ago, when
Luis Alvarez at Berkely first put forward his theory of dinosaur
extinction
being caused by an extraterrestrial impact. While it's become
fairly well
accepted today, many aren't aware, or have forgotten, that there
was a
tremendous amount of resistance to it when it was first
propounded. And that
resistance seemed to go beyond rational scientific argument - it
seemed
almost religious in its fervor.

Viewing this as a college student, who was interested in and
familiar with
space, I found nothing exceptional about the theory at all, but
it was clear
to me that much of the scientific community had a deep emotional
investment
in not believing that our planet could be so dramatically
affected by an
event beyond our atmosphere.

I'm not sure why exactly, but one might speculate that, to a
planetary
scientist used to thinking in terms of geological and biological
processes
forming and reforming the earth and its inhabitants, invoking
forces
extraterrestrial perhaps had the feel to it of the supernatural -
a blow
literally from the heavens, and one from a source with which they
were (not
being astronomers or extraplanetary scientists) unfamiliar and
unknowledgable. It may have almost seemed like a creationist
theory of
evolution.

More practically, to accept such a concept might imply that their
chosen
field was much broader than their traditional education, and that
much of
what they had been taught was wrong. It was probably a natural
resistance to
a major scientific paradigm shift.

Fortunately, unlike actual creationist theories, it was testable,
and
evidence for it has been found, including the actual crater in
Central
America, and now, after a quarter of a century, it's taught as
the
prevailing theory.

Anyway, there's an interesting article on this subject in
Space.com today,
that has some interesting related statistics (though I can't
vouch for them,
and it's not clear what assumptions go into them). Anyone whose
interest has
been piqued by my previous comments on the subject will find this
story at
least as fascinating as my own.

Basically, the thesis is that we base our fears not on analysis,
but on
what's familiar. Prior to September 11, few took the terrorist
threat
seriously - now concern about it is very high and it can command
huge
numbers of societal resources. We should hope that it won't take
an asteroid
strike to get similar motivation to at least map and, if
necessary, deter
potential cosmic threats, but judging by human nature, it may.

People who enjoy worrying about asteroid catastrophes have
recently been
introduced to 1950 DA, a kilometer-wide chunk of rock that
scientists now
calculate has up to a 1-in-300 chance of smashing into the Earth,
causing
devastation. Fortunately, 1950 DA isn't due to arrive in our
neighborhood
for more than eight centuries. Our descendants should have plenty
of time to
find ways to cope.

The best news - for people who are worried that an errant
asteroid might
show up any day now - is that the measures being discussed to
head off
disaster seem blessedly benign. No need to assemble a large force
of rockets
carrying monstrously huge nuclear bombs to blow the asteroid off
course or
smash it to smithereens. That sort of scheme has always made us
wonder which
would be the bigger danger, the asteroids or the nuclear arsenal
designed to
combat them. We can be thankful that this asteroid looks as if it
could be
diverted by some simple changes to its surface.

It turns out that one of the big uncertainties in calculating the
path of
the asteroid involves how much sunlight it absorbs and then
reradiates as
thermal energy. Such radiation can, over the centuries, gently
push the
asteroid into a different orbit, much as a tiny rocket would. So
if
scientists in future years should conclude that a collision looks
ever more
likely, they can probably find ways to alter the asteroid's
radiation
pattern by dusting its surface with soot or powdered chalk or
draping it
with reflective Mylar. Such tinkering could be enough to nudge
the asteroid
safely away.

A new public opinion poll from MORI shows that over 60% of
British adults
expect the impossible from science. [1]

The MORI poll, commissioned to mark the opening of the new
Science Media
Centre [2], shows that 71% of the public look to scientists to
give an
'agreed view' about science issues and 61% expect science to
provide 100%
guarantees about the safety of medicines. Yet most scientists
insist that
science cannot and should not deliver either.

Dr Mark Peplow, Science Information Officer at the SMC says:
"The public's
expectations of what science can deliver are wide of the mark.
Disagreement
is a fundamental part of scientific enquiry -- it makes science
stronger by
weeding out the weaker theories. And although scientists are
always striving
for knowledge, they can rarely provide cast-iron certainty about
safety."

However, the blame for the public's misconception may rest with
scientists
themselves. A staggering 85% of the public feel that scientists
need to
improve the way they communicate their research findings to the
public
through the media.

The poll also confirms the importance of the media in informing
and
influencing public opinion on science. 9 out of 10 people rely on
the media
for at least some of their information about science, with
television news
cited as the main source (68%). Yet other surveys have shown that
only 7% of
scientists spontaneously think of the media as an important group
to
communicate with and two-thirds of scientists admit to not having
spoken to
the media in the previous year. [3]

The MORI poll findings confirm a clear role for the new Science
Media Centre
that opens today (Tuesday 2nd April) with the aim of helping to
renew public
trust in science by encouraging more

scientists to engage with the media. The Centre, housed within
the Royal
Institution, has been set up by scientists who acknowledge that
their
traditional reluctance to deal with the media has contributed to
declining
levels of public support and could threaten the future of
scientific
progress.

Fiona Fox, Head of the Science Media Centre, said: "On the
one hand we have
a public with an apparently poor grasp of the way science works
and on the
other hand we have many scientists who are equally poor at
engaging with the
media. This poll shows why we need something like the Science
Media Centre
to bring the two together.

"Given the major decisions that society will have to make
over the coming
years about issues like cloning, genetically modified foods,
global warming
and so on, this poll should be a wake up call for all those who
want a well
informed debate about scientific development."

In some good news for scientists, the poll findings suggest that
bruising
encounters like the BSE crisis and the controversies over GM
foods and the
MMR vaccine have not affected overall support for science. 87% of
the public
agree that on the whole science has had a positive impact on
society and
only 3% disagree.

But there's further bad news for the Government. The poll shows
that only 1%
of the public trust politicians the most to give accurate and
balanced
information about the combined MMR vaccine and its safety for
children. The
poll confirms that doctors are the group most trusted on MMR
(69%) and that
scientists who are funded by the Government are less likely to be
trusted
than those funded by academia (7% compared to 26%).

Vivienne Parry, member of the SMC Board and former Tomorrow's
World
presenter, said: "The results of this poll show clearly why
the government's
MMR message failed. The question parents ask of
doctors is 'If you were me what would you do?', but what they ask
of
scientists is, 'Can you guarantee this is 100% safe?'. And since
science
can't deliver this answer, of course the public's trust in
science will
evaporate. It shows how the Science Media Centre needs
to focus not just on what science does but also how it works and
what the
public should expect from it."

We here on planet Earth nearly escaped massive destruction the
other day.

An asteroid large enough to demolish a major city - and in the
movies, it's
ALWAYS a major city - passed within 288,000 miles of earth last
month.
That's just a hair away from tragedy in space terms.

The moon is only 250,000 miles away, and you KNOW how close that
thing is.
It only takes us three days to drive there by space shuttle - two
if the
astronauts stop and ask for directions.

I don't know if you realize just how close a call that was. That
was like
driving from Warren to Los Angeles - 120 times.

For astrological terms when dealing with the infinity of space,
that's like
being winged in the gun hand in the old movie Westerns - a might
close,
ma'am, no real harm done.

Why didn't astronomers warn us so we could duck? Why didn't they
alert Bruce
Willis?

Because they lost it in the sun.

Yep, the asteroid came from the direction of the sun, like the
kind of high
fly ball that drops two feet in front of the centerfielder,
allowing
everybody to score.

It whizzed right by earth on March 8 but wasn't even noticed
until March 12
when it was well on its way to Saturn or Pluto or one of the more
hospitable
planets that would notice a visitor.

Lest you think asteroids and baseballs never hit, let me remind
you of two
facts.

In 1908, a similar-sized asteroid wiped out a 20-mile-wide patch
of Siberian
forest.

And on May 26, 1993, a baseball bonked Texas outfielder Jose
Canseco in the
head and bounced over the old stadium fence, counting for a
Cleveland
Indians home run. There are no reports that the baseball wiped
out a
20-mile-wide patch of Canseco's hair.

This leaves us pondering some very grave issues: What if
astronauts launched
a baseball into earth's atmosphere from the space shuttle? Would
it wipe out
a village? What if they launched Jose Canseco?

Expensive government testing should be conducted immediately.

I have never personally dropped an asteroid, baseball or Jose
Canseco from
space. I did experiment with water balloons from my second-floor
bedroom
window, however. I dropped 13 straight balloons while my little
brother
stood perfectly still beneath me, sticking his tongue out.
Finally he walked
into the 14th water balloon because he was getting tired and my
aim was off
again.

The conclusion I draw from this is even if the asteroid hurled
itself into
our atmosphere, chances of it being on target to take out another
hunk of
Siberian forest are pretty slim indeed, especially if it was
actually aiming
for the forest.

Astronauts trying to drop an asteroid from the space shuttle
onto, say,
Osama bin Laden's hideout, probably wouldn't score a direct hit
unless
Osama, like my little brother, got bored and walked into it.
Otherwise, the
astronauts' mothers probably would find out they were throwing
things out
the windows again and ground them. At least, some mothers are
like that. So
I'm told.

But at least when you get to be off by 288,000 miles and still
count it as a
''near miss,'' well, it makes you wish you could get those odds
in
horseshoes, doesn't it?

I wish my math teacher would have let me get within 288,000 of
the answer in
the back of her book. At least now I know I ''nearly'' made it to
Yale, and
I'm almost a nuclear physicist, astronomically speaking.

Anyway, the asteroid is long gone after a close call. And we all
learned
what ''nearly'' really means. I am grateful for the knowledge.
It's going to
make estimating my deductions on my income tax filings a lot more
fun this
year.

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